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PARIS — It is only typical of France that some of the raucous parties and most combative sword fights of the Olympic Games are held in one of the country’s most elegant palaces.
If the Eiffel Tower’s beach volleyball stadium is the Olympics’ most spectacular outdoor venue, the Grand Palais (home of fencing and taekwondo) is its most magnificent stage, a vast hall and museum that combines the architecture and grandeur of the early 20th century with the light show and club atmosphere of the 2020s. The result is a venue like no other, one that has the potential to raise the profile of entire sports.
“This is what the sport needs,” said American fencer Nick Itkin, just minutes after winning the bronze medal in the men’s individual foil event on Monday night. Draped in the American flag, still sweating from his 15-12 victory over Japan’s Kazuki Iimura, Itkin looked around the massive hall as music thumped and light shows swirled.
“Fencers need this kind of reward for all that effort,” he said, “because this is really what motivates athletes to keep going.”
Built for an exhibition in 1900, the Grand Palais is a historic landmark, a prime example of the French Beaux-Arts architectural style, combining iron and glass in an ornate vaulted style, with its magnificent glass roof rising above its great hall.
For many decades after its opening, the Grand Palais hosted massive exhibitions in its vast space, such as this air show:
American audiences might recognize the Grand Palais from Mission: Impossible: Fallout, where Tom Cruise skydives onto its massive roof to sneak into an exotic party inside. The Palace has been closed since 2021 and is currently undergoing renovations to prepare the majestic former hall for its next era. The Olympic Games mark the reintroduction of the Palace to Paris and so far, it has been a huge success.
The high stands hold 9,000 spectators. Competitors enter the hall via the grand western staircase, and by the time they are under the Palais’s enormous dome, the stands are packed. The fans are well informed, attentive to every aggressive thrust, deft parry and precise touch, and their voices rise in anticipation every time a fencer approaches that magical winning mark of 15 points. It is a glorious but intense environment, one that is unfamiliar to most fencers and requires some adjustment.
“Going into the venue, I was just dazzled for a moment,” Itkin said. “It took me a couple of touches to get into a rhythm, but then I used that energy to propel me through my fight.” But he gave himself a little advice: “Go have fun and enjoy this moment” and the result was an Olympic medal in one of the most spectacular venues ever to host an Olympic discipline.
Itkin hopes the attention the sport receives through its connection to the Grand Palais will help inspire the growth of fencing in the United States. (In France, fencing is doing well; French fencers won both gold and silver in the women’s individual sabre event on Monday night.)
“France has done an incredible job because it is the birthplace of fencing,” Itkin said. “They have an incredible following, but fencing is growing at an incredible rate in the United States and I think it will continue to grow.”
He has an idea in mind about where fencing could be held in Los Angeles in 2028, but he doesn’t want to reveal it publicly yet. Wherever fencing ends up in four years, it will have to work hard to surpass the glittering dome of the Grand Palais.